Yesterday Once More

In her book, It’s What I do, she used vivid description and images to show about her experience happened during the period before and after 9/11. In this chapter, she started with the story with the relationships with her boyfriend Uxval, and his misunderstanding of her work at the War Zone, but going to the pictures from front line was Addario’s because she believes only the vivid images from the place where events that truly happened would be the most mind-blowing. So according to her story, I realized that only after you experience or truly understand something, then you would know the best way to achieve your goal. Like my experience happened with that patient and the Ebook I donated.

I start the Warmth Project after meeting cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Xu at the Zhejiang Children’s Hospital in 9th grade.

He taught me that many young children in the area suffered from congenital heart disease because of exposure to pollution. I decided to find a way to make their hospital stays a little easier, and my solution was to give the children e-readers, something fun and educational for while in bed. We raised money through our community, and I felt proud that I could make their lives a little better.

In the second year, however, I went back and visited one of the children to whom we had given one of the e-readers; he was still in the hospital. However, when I asked him where he was, he seemed to look away and get nervous. The doctor pulled me aside to tell me that his family had sold it.

I couldn’t believe that they would be so disrespectful over a gift that cost lots of organized time and energy to purchase. Was it a waste?

But, as Dr. Xu explained, he and others came from poor families, who had extreme difficulty paying for medical treatment—the last thing the family needed was an e-reader.

I was immediately mortified by my self-righteous response, and it made me question my motivations for the work I had done. A true benefactor, I concluded, should do good deeds for others for no reason besides altruism. By recognizing this, I decided to transform my charity to focus on paying for medical bills for low-income families rather than paying for their kids’ entertainment. By working to improve my community, I realized that there are degrees to impact and that, moving forward, I should focus on impacting my world where it needs the most help, like Addiro who encouraged so many people to set up awareness against the war.